IDOT finalizing plan to unsnarl Circle Interchange

A proposed overhaul of the Circle Interchange west of downtown Chicago would take about four years, IDOT officials say. (Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune)

The state is close to adopting a final redesign for the Circle Interchange — the dizzying array of curving ramps near downtown Chicago where the Eisenhower, Dan Ryan and Kennedy expressways meet, along with Congress Parkway.

Although it's still at least several years until new ribbons of concrete are poured, planning by the Illinois Department of Transportation is almost completed.

The construction timetable will depend on securing the federal and state funding needed for the estimated $420 million project to modernize and expand the capacity of the crumbling highway structure, which was built between 1958 and 1962 and by today's safety standards is a crash magnet. Once construction begins, it will take about four years to complete, IDOT officials said.

IDOT will host a public hearing Wednesday to present the new design plan that was selected over several other options, and to receive feedback before the final proposal is submitted to the Federal Highway Administration, officials said.

The Quinn administration won key support for the project from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, which placed the Circle makeover on its "Go To 2040" list of infrastructure improvements that are vital to the region.

But other urban planning experts criticized the agency's decision, saying the claimed benefits of the Circle project were not put to a rigorous test. For instance, it's highly unlikely that IDOT's estimate of at least a 50 percent reduction in traffic delays on the three expressways would materialize, some independent experts said.

The Circle project also scored poorly on criteria designed to determine whether ridership on public transit and access to transit would be enhanced by the work, the experts said.

"The data that CMAP made available showed that this project would not produce a significant return on investment,'' said MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit group that promotes sustainable transportation and land-use policies.

"We cannot afford as a region to have another 'Hillside Strangler' project that makes for a good headline but does not solve a problem,'' Barrett said, alluding to a traffic fix that IDOT made on the Eisenhower under then-Gov. George Ryan that only pushed a congestion bottleneck farther east along the expressway.

Residents of the Green Street Lofts in Greektown said they plan to show up at Wednesday's IDOT meeting. Their century-old building, formerly a cardboard box factory, at 400 S. Green Street sits in the shadow of the Eisenhower near the Circle junction. Mayor Rahm Emanuel lived in the building in 2010 and part of 2011 while waiting to move back into his home in the Ravenswood neighborhood that he had rented out.

Under IDOT's plan, called Alternative 7.1C, a new ramp channeling traffic onto the westbound Eisenhower from the northbound Ryan would pass within about 7 feet of the south face of the condominium building. The residents want IDOT to switch to a backup design, called Alternative 15.4, that diverts the traffic away from their building and under Halsted Street.

"We are not like people who move into homes near an airport and complain about airplane noise,'' said David Lewis, the condominium board president who has lived in the building since the late 1980s, when the surrounding area was a skid row. "We accept the fact that we have to wash our windows a lot more than normal because of the soot from the expressway.

"But we were shocked to learn from IDOT, only last month, that the proposed overpass ramp would be 7 feet from our building,'' Lewis added. "As one of my neighbors pointed out, at the zoo you're not allowed to get that close to the monkey cage.''

Pete Steinau, 70, and his wife, Connie, 67, have lived in their duplex unit since 1999. "I moved here 14 years ago figuring I'll probably die in this building, but not of pollution and vibration,'' Steinau said.

He said Alternative 15.4 "may not be quite as perfect, but it meets all the transportation requirements and it would be on the other side of the expressway.''

In response to the concerns, IDOT is modifying the ramp design, department spokesman Mike Claffey said.

"We have received public input, and we will have a new design at the public hearing,'' he said. "The ramp will be farther from the building.''

Although IDOT has selected a preferred alternative for the overall project, "we are soliciting stakeholder comments and IDOT will consider changes to the program that are appropriate,'' Claffey said.

IDOT officials insist that Alternative 7.1C would do the best job of reducing congestion, bottlenecks and crashes, leading to faster and safer commutes, according to traffic modeling that simulated the estimated 400,000 cars and trucks that travel over the Circle Interchange each weekday.